The present invention relates to storage of network management information and more particularly to efficient representations of network management information object identifiers.
It is desirable to manage and control nodes of a network such as a TCP/IP network from one or more network management stations connected to the network. The network management stations then monitor and control other nodes in the network including hosts, routers, etc. A protocol known as the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is used to communicate management information between network management stations and management agent software operating on other network nodes. SNMP is described in Case, RFC 1157, xe2x80x9cA Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), (Internet Engineering Task Force May 1990), the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference. Using SNMP in a TCP/IP network, a network management station may monitor traffic at a remote node, modify network operation parameters at the remote node, etc.
To facilitate SNMP operation, nodes of a TCP/IP network including the network management stations maintain network management information databases known as MIBs (management information bases). MIBs are described in McCloghrie, et al., RFC 1213, xe2x80x9cManagement Information Base for Network Management of TCP/IP Based Internets: MIB-IIxe2x80x9d (Internet Engineering Task Force March 1991), the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.
The MIB at each node consists of many individual objects, each having a single value. For example, a particular node may include within its MIB an object whose value specifies the total number of IP datagrams received at that node, including those received in error. The MIB at the network management station may include an object specifying the time since the network management software at the station was last reinitialized. Each MIB includes a large number of such objects.
Each MIB object is specified by an object identifier (OID). The OID specifies the type of object and a particular instance of that type. For example, an object whose value indicates the total number of input octets on an interface of a node would be denoted by the OID 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.10.x, where x indicates a specific instance of the type identified by the values preceding x. In this case, x is just one integer and identifies a particular interface of the node storing the object referenced by the OID.
Each integer in each OID requires 4 bytes of storage. With the many OlDs that must be stored at the network management stations and other nodes of the network, there is a great requirement for memory storage space to store them. What is needed is a system for memory efficient storage of network management object identifiers such as OIDs.
Systems and methods for efficient storage of network management object identifiers are provided by virtue of the present invention. Object identifiers such as SNMP MIB object identifiers are stored in a compressed form. In one embodiment, a single integer represents multiple elements of an object identifier where these elements are common to many identifiers. The redundancy inherent in a standard object identifier format is thereby greatly reduced. Large memory savings are provided in network management systems that employ many network management objects.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, a computer-implemented method for storing a network management object identifier includes: storing a first group of elements of the identifier in compressed form, and storing the remaining elements of the identifier in uncompressed form.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, a computer-implemented method for extracting information from a network management object identifier includes steps of: extracting a first value from the identifier, decompressing the first value to form a first group of elements of the identifier, and extracting remaining elements from the identifier.
A further understanding of the nature and advantages of the inventions herein may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of the specification and the attached drawings.